Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.
When I came into the CEO office, I basically changed the entire management team. We knew that we had to change the company, so we needed a new set of leaders.
Law Number XXIX: Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results hang on about half a decade.
It's a bottom line business where a lot of gray suits are brought in and then, within two years, these guys suddenly know everything about baseball.
Any time you have a change of leadership in an organization, everything kind of shifts.
The number of CEOs voluntarily leaving their jobs or being forced out spiked early. Many of those companies will be turning to an interim CEO to take the reins. These temporary leaders are increasingly in demand, according to those who watch corner office trends.
Any time you can degrade or take away the top leadership of an organization, it's a positive step forward.
One of the symptoms of a losing streak is a turnover of top executives. It's a revolving door.
I left Google X. All the senior women have left Google X. I was the last to make it - I was, to be fair, the last there. Megan Smith left, Claire Hughes Johnson, vice presidents at Google left.
I fired a lot of senior people myself and I think the key, when you feel compelled to remove a senior official, is essentially to have all your ducks in a row at the beginning. Have everybody understand what the rationale was.
During my seven-year contract with RKO, there were seven different studio presidents, from David O. Selznick to Charles W. Koerner. You literally had to check the name on the door so as not to call the new boss by the former boss's name.
I've never had a relationship with a record executive. I always went to the record company by someone that liked my playing. Then they would get fired, and I'd be left with the record company. And then - because they got fired - the record company wouldn't do anything for me.
CEOs can stay too long.
I'm a really big believer in chief executives not staying forever.
In business terms, if you take over a company and oust its CEO or fire a divisional chief, you run the place. But in institutional terms, as it happens, it doesn't at all work that way.
You go in and meet the head of BBC One and get an assurance about not dumbing down. And then, of course a few months later, he's been replaced by someone you haven't met.
Twitter could save a lot of money by writing its executives' names on their doors with pencil instead of fancy placards. Like an episode of 'Suits,' Twitter execs come, go, change jobs and disappear under black clouds every few minutes. Office administration costs must be astronomical!
You do understand when you get into management that you will get the sack at some stage, but that never puts people off trying again.
